With Eliot traveling Eric welcomes Eugene Finkel, the Kenneth H. Keller Professor of International Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) to discuss his recent book Intent to Destroy: Russia's Two-Hundred Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine (New York: Basic Books, 2024). They discuss the long-term Russian effort to dominate, subordinate and eliminate Ukrainian nationality, culture and language. They touch on the pillars of Russian national identify and how Russians came to see Ukraine and Ukrainians as inferior members of a hierarchy of Russian-ness and how the emergence of Ukrainian nationalism in Poland and later the Austro-Hungarian empire came to represent an existential threat to Russian ethnic domination of St. Petersburg's multinational empire in the run up to world war one. They discuss the collapse of the Russian Empire and the emergence of an independent Ukraine, the reasons for its failure and Stalin's efforts to destroy Ukrainian nationalism, his drive for collectivization of agriculture and the ensuing Holodomor -- a man-made famine that cost perhaps as many as 5 million lives. They also discuss Ukraine during World War Two, caught between the Wehrmacht and Red Army. The collaboration of some Ukrainian nationalists with the Nazis and the guerrilla war to prevent Soviet re-occupation of Ukraine which lasted into the early 1950s, cost perhaps 100 thousand lives and gave birth to the Russian notion that Ukrainian nationalism was inherently fascist. They consider Ukraine's independence in 1992, the negotiation of the Budapest Memorandum and the myth that Ukraine "gave up nuclear weapons, as well as the cultural shift that will have to take place in Russia if there is to be lasting peace that ends the current war.
Intent to Destroy: Russia’s Two-Hundred-Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine:
Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast cosponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
Thank you for this very, very informative and thoughtful conservation. In the time since the podcast, some discussions have now begun towards ending the fighting between Russia and Ukraine. The tentative agreement seems to include Ukraine's not joining NATO, as well some permanent ceding of territory to Russia.
I don't know if you read listener comments, but I wonder if it could be worthwhile to ask the forensic question of whether Ukraine could have won. If they had been given more/enough weapons, funding and support, could Ukraine have conceivably won? I think that deserves a hearing.
My own feeling is that they could have. Although I wonder how that could have been solidified into an enduring victory. Would Russia have reignited hostile takeover efforts at some future point in time? It's a given they would be unaccepting of this defeat. Maybe this kind of postgame analysis could have some value as part of a future podcast? If only because Ukraine's defeat seems worthy of a broad understanding, including what went so wrong, but also a respectful examination of "what might have been".
This was a fascinating conversation. I will get the book..someday soon..but am in the midst of something lighter having just completed Bloodlands.
A great deal of tragedy in this history
Thank you both very much -- this is a book I will read, because I need to know more about this conflict and this region. Heretofore, my sole understanding was that Crimea is where Pushkin did some lovely poetry, and Tchaikovsky & other composers vacationed! This was enlightening, to say the least!
Superb episode. My thanks to you both.
I like Shield of the Republic because I know little to nothing about any of the subject matter. I always come away feeling the tiniest bit more aware of things that are important, and relevant to the current, as the past usually is. I agree with Eric's final words that the guest ends with an "unusually hopeful note". Thank you!